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The Dynasty of the Oppression 61

In the Le nin grad mu seum lies a pa py rus of the 12th DYNASTY, com posed dur ing the reign
of its FIRST KING AMENEMHET I. The pa py rus is in the form of a PROPHECY at trib uted to the
sage Nefer-rehu of the time of King Snefru; and in it an amaz ing pre dic tion is made:

A king shall come from the south, called AMUNY [short ened form of the name
Amenemhet], the son of a woman of Nubia, and born in Up per Egypt....He shall re ceive the
White Crown, he shall wear the Red Crown [will be come ruler over ALL Egypt]....the peo -
ple of his time shall re joice, THE SON OF SOMEONE shall make his name for ever and
ever....The Asiatics shall fall be fore his car nage, and the Lib yans shall fall be fore his
flame....There shall be built the ‘WALL OF THE PRINCE [RULER],’ and the Asiatics
shall not (again) be suf fered to go down into Egypt.

Here the NON-ROYAL DESCENT of Amenemhet I.
is clearly in di cated, for the phrase “son of Some one”
was a com mon way of des ig nat ing a man of good,
though not princely or royal, birth. Ac cord ing to
George Rawlinson: “There is NO INDICATION OF
ANY RELATIONSHIP be tween the kings of the
twelfth and those of the elev enth dy nasty; and it is a
con jec ture not al to gether im prob a ble, that the
Amen-em-hat who was the FOUNDER OF THE
TWELFTH DYNASTY was de scended from THE
FUNCTIONARY OF THE SAME NAME, who un -
der Mentuhotep II. [of the pre vi ous dy nasty] ex e cuted
com mis sions of im por tance. At any rate, he makes
NO PRETENSION TO ROYAL ORIGIN, and the
prob a bil ity would seem to be that he at tained the
throne NOT THROUGH ANY CLAIM OF RIGHT,
Amenemhet I but by his own per sonal mer its. (His tory of An cient
Egypt. Dodd, Mead & Co., N.Y. 1882. Pps.146-147).

“His own per sonal mer its” prob a bly in cluded con spir acy: “We have to sup pose that at a
given mo ment he CONSPIRED AGAINST HIS ROYAL MASTER [last king of the 11th Dy -
nasty], and per haps af ter some years of con fu sion mounted the throne IN HIS PLACE. A re cent dis -
cov ery lends col our to this hy poth e sis. A Dyn. XVIII in scrip tion ex tracted from the third py lon at
Kar nak names af ter Nebhepetre and Sankhkare a ‘GOD’S FATHER’ SENWOSRE who from his
ti tle can only have been the NON-ROYAL PARENT of Ammenemes I [Greek form of
Amenemhet].” (Egypt of the Pha raohs, by Sir Alan Gar di ner. Ox ford Uni ver sity Press, Eng land.
1961. P.125).

The in scrip tions on the mon u ments make it clear that his el e va tion to the throne of Egypt
was no peace ful he red i tary suc ces sion, but a STRUGGLE for the crown and scep ter that con tin ued
for some time. He fought his way to the throne, and was ac cepted as king only be cause he tri umphed
over his ri vals. Af ter the fight was ended and the towns of Egypt sub dued, the new pha raoh be gan to
ex tend the bor ders of Egypt.

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